


Hold On to Me

by blackcoffeeandteardrops



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I love tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-03 21:14:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14577804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackcoffeeandteardrops/pseuds/blackcoffeeandteardrops
Summary: After the chaos of Infinity War, Tony searches for and maybe finds one of the people who matters most to him.





	Hold On to Me

A layer of dirt and grime clung to Tony like a second skin. He grew more exhausted with every step, wincing as he felt the fragile repair job he'd done on himself begin to pull apart. He’d asked Nebula to land at the Avengers tower, thinking it was the safest place to stay and regroup. The second the ship touched down however, he all but bolted off, needing to do two specific things before he could allow himself to do anything else.

The streets of New York were desolate. Cars were mangled on side streets, glass was scattered everywhere, alarms sounded intermittently, and everything was covered in a thin layer of dust.

“No,” he said, the word echoing off the walls around him. He’d known on some level that the events on Titan weren't isolated, had wanted so desperately to believe he was wrong, but with each step his fears were becoming more realized. If he had been desperate to hear from Pepper before, the raw need was suddenly multiplied tenfold.

The penthouse they shared was empty, and the multiple calls he placed to her phone went unanswered. He crouched down on the ground outside of the building, feeling an ache settle deep in his bones. How long had it been since he’d seen her, since they’d kissed quickly before he’d been whisked away by Stephen Strange and the chaos began? The desperation in her voice when she'd called as he was on the ship hadn't been his undoing at the time, but now it replayed in his mind, taunting him with thoughts of what might have happened had he turned back around and gone home to her.

As he collected himself, leaning against the wall for support, Tony was dimly aware of voices across the street. People were emerging from buildings, trying to make sense of what remained, unaware of how grand a scale the loss was to everyone. He thought he heard someone call his name, thought he’d been recognized, but at the moment he couldn't bring himself to care. He picked up speed, rounding the corner, knowing there was someplace else he had to go.

He’d practiced a speech on the way to May’s apartment, fully prepared for the onslaught of anger he’d receive from her, but when he got there, the apartment was empty. It was a small reprieve, he supposed, not having to tell Peter’s aunt that he was gone, but it was one he wasn't sure he deserved.

It wasn't right, that at the end of everything, he was the one left standing while everyone else that mattered had dissolved into dust. Thanos’ grand plan to allegedly balance the universe (or control it, really) had never truly made sense as far as he was concerned, but now that the war was over and they’d lost, it didn't make any sense that he was spared when so many others were lost.

Stephen--Dr.Strange, he corrected himself--had said something about being in the end game now, seconds before dissolving into dust himself. He’d told Tony before that he wouldn't hesitate in choosing the stone over Tony himself, but at the last second had changed his mind. What was it about whatever was happening that warranted him surviving when so many others hadn't?

_I’m sorry, Mr.Stark. I don't want to go._

Peter's last words played through his mind, taunting him. He'd told the kid to go back home, had all but insisted on it, but knew the only reason Peter had come along was because of him.

_If you really wanted to have kids, you wouldn't have done that._

Pepper. Oh God, Pepper. She didn't want him to risk his life, didn't want him in harm's way, but he’d gone and done the opposite of what she wanted. The only reason he’d put the unit back in his chest had been as a precaution, a preventative measure in the event he ever needed to protect them--to protect her. He closed his eyes, thinking of the dream he’d had that had felt all too real. A baby boy with her eyes and his hair, resting in his mother's arms. At the time he’d dreamt it, the vision had been a comfort, but upon recall he became nauseous. He rested his hands on his knees, gasping for air for a few moments before emptying his stomach contents onto the street.

He couldn't be the only one left, he thought. He just couldn't. With what little strength he had left, Tony made his way back to the tower, resolved to set a plan in motion to fix what happened and bring everyone back.

“Friday, I need to track the team’s last known locations,” he said, eyeing Nebula across the room tapping away at a screen. He’d left her with minimum instructions and had circumstances been different he might have been annoyed with someone he barely knew touching some of his tech, but he knew now they needed all the help they could get. “I need to get in contact with whoever’s left. We’ve lost,” he stopped, shaking his head. He blanched, feeling the wound in his side begin to pulse with each heavy breath that he drew. “We’ve lost too many people, and--”

“Well, you haven’t lost me.”

Tony closed his eyes, his breath hitching in his chest. It was impossible, wasn’t it? His mind had to be playing tricks, but he’d know her voice anywhere. “Friday, if this is some kind of trick, some sort of recall of audio, that’s the last thing I need right now,” he said, his voice shaking.

Nebula stood in the corner, darting her eyes behind him. While she wasn’t exactly an expert at human emotions, he could hazard a guess that maybe it wasn’t a trick at all when she quietly set the tablet down and moved for the hall, mumbling something about checking on the ship.

He waited a full five seconds, so convinced it couldn’t possibly be real, but the weight of her hand settled on his shoulder, and the release of tension from his body was palpable. “Pepper,” he said, smiling around the syllables of her name.

“Tony,” Pepper replied, not bothering the mask the tremor in her voice as she gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Tony, turn around.”

His first thought upon turning to face her is was that maybe he was seeing things. Maybe he lost consciousness on the way back to Earth and the whole thing was a dream he’d concocted. But when her hands cupped either side of his face and her lips all but pushed his open as she brought him in for a kiss, he jolted back to the present, eager to make the moment last. “I thought,” he said, pressing his forehead against hers once they part for breath, taking a moment to collect himself. “You’re here?”

Pepper smiled sadly, nodding as she brushed the hair back from his forehead. “I’m here,” she said, cataloging the injuries she could see with her eyes. “I want to be angry with you, and _I am_ , for taking off on that ship like that,” she said, biting her lip for a second as tears blurred her vision. The fear she’d felt at learning he’d taken off for parts unknown had been paralyzing, but she’d had a business to run and work to do, until people had started disappearing into dust, and she knew her options were limited. “I found the safest place I could to stay until whatever happened next,” she said, unwilling to tell him just yet how for a while she thought she’d never see him again, but the look on his face is evidence he knew anyhow. “If you had just stayed, instead of bolting off the second the ship landed…”

“I had to find you. I should’ve known you’d be here,” he said, shaking his head. He shifted his hand from her hip to her shoulder to her cheek, desperate for further proof she was solid and tangible and real against him. “There was also May--”

“May?” Pepper asked, frowning for a second until the reality of what he was saying dawned on her. “ _Peter_? The kid went up on that death trap with you?”

“I told him to stay here, Pep. I did. I even sent him home, but he stayed aboard,” Tony bowed his head, staring at the floor. “The kid apologized. I don’t deserve that. But I wanted to go to May, to tell her in person I’m going to do everything within my power to fix this, only when I got there...there’s dust everywhere. People dissolved. I thought you--” he stopped, glancing about, feeling the tiniest bit guilty for the thought not occurring to him sooner. “Happy?”

“He vanished right before my eyes,” Pepper replied, shaking her head. She watched as he processed the information, as he tried making sense of the world they were left with, and gave his hand a squeeze, anchoring him to the present where they stood. “You look like hell, Tony. What happened up there?”

He shrugged, fighting the urge to groan at the pain the movement caused. The longer he remained still, the more the pain returned, as if the only thing that had been keeping him functioning had been the adrenaline coursing through his body. “I’ll tell you everything, I swear. But honey?”  
Pepper wanted to say more, wanted him to realize that as afraid as he might have been at losing her, she was just as scared at home, waiting for any kind of sign that he might be okay. She thought back to the moment in the park, how excited he’d been at the prospect of being a father, and she knew there was more she had to tell him. Still, the way he held tight to her, afraid to lose contact like she might fade away like all of the others, let her know that if they were to make any forward progress at all, they’d have to take things slow. “What is it?”

He opened his mouth to tell her, ready to let it all out at once so he wouldn’t have to go through it again, only to hear Friday exclaim they had an incoming video call from Rhodey. He tilted his head, grimacing as he moved toward a nearby table, not letting go of Pepper’s hand as he sat down with a subtle thud. If he could just feel her, the thought, he’d know she was there. “We’ll take the call here,” he said, waiting as the call connected. There was more work to be done, but he listened as Rhodey caught him up on events on his end, feeling the diamond on Pepper’s ring dig into his skin. He smiled despite or perhaps because of everything they’d gone through, feeling somber at the thought of everything they’d lost, but also thinking of everything they had left to fight for.


End file.
